On this week's new episode of Paris History Avec a Hemingway on La Vie Creative Podcast we share the stories of a few of the bravest women in French history. During WWII many women stood up to fight for France in any way they could and for many years they were left far from the pages of history.
Marie Madeleine Fourcade, born November 8, 1909, followed the path of most young girls. Attending the Couvent des Oiseaux, where all good girls went to become the perfect wife. At 18 she married Colonel Méric and five children quickly followed. Being a wife and mother was not all she hoped and dreamed it would be and became a journalist at first for the Vichy papers. When she realized what was truly behind the far-right movement she moved into the Resistance.
In 1939 she met George Loustaunau-Lacau, a high-ranking official and friend of Charles De Gaulle, and became his chief of staff of the Alliance Resistance. By 1940 they had to go underground. Marie would become the head of the Alliance and recruited over 1500 people to serve in the network as pilots, curriers, and radio operators. Known as Hedgehog, she was fearless and faced death every day. When the Germans figured out who she was and found her in a chateau and arrived to arrest her, she convinced them she needed to take a bath first. When the officers went outside to smoke she slipped out the door and made her way to Lyon.
Arrested in November 1942 she was able to escape on the way to the Castres prison thanks to a few compliant officers. With each attack on the Alliance, she would constantly rebuild the network time after time. Highly decorated after the war she would live a long life until 1989.
Cécile-Rol-Tanguy was born on April 10, 1919, in Royan to activist parents. During the start of WWII, she was a “godmother of war”, essentially a pen pal, to a young soldier named Henri Tanguy. The two finally met face-to-face and were married on April 19, 1939. In 1940 they moved to Paris and began working underground for the Resistance. She strolled through checkpoints with her baby stroller that could be filled with guns, money, and grenades. Changing her name and paper she was always one step ahead of the Germans.
When the war ended and de Gaulle arrived in Paris and marched down the Champs Élysées he held a reception in the Hotel de Ville. Cécile was the only woman in attendance and this was only because of her husband. After WWII she was a Friend of the Fighting Spanish and when Francois Holland wanted to award her for her bravery she declined, at first. Eventually, she decided she would accept it but only on behalf of all of the women who had fought in the resistance.
After the war, she and Henri continued their commitment to the fight against fascism. With her daughter she led Les Amis des combattants de l'Espagne république and lived to the age of 101.
Simone Segouin could be the most recognized of the ladies of the Resistance. Her father worked in the Resistance as well as in the local government. She was just 16 years old and dared to blow up bridges, lay traps, and damage German villages. In Chartres, she stole a bicycle, repainted it, and spent a year riding all over the Loire delivering messages. On August 23, 1944, she took part in the Liberation of Chartres and two days later arrived in Paris for the big fight, the Liberation of Paris. It was on the streets of Paris that her most famous image was shot. A young girl standing against a wall holding a large German machine gun taken from a soldier.
This moment was captured on film by photographer Jack Belden and was featured in Life Magazine making her the most famous image of the Resistance. After the war, she became a nurse, had six children, and never married. When she was offered the Legion of Honor award and at first refused but was later accepted in 2021. Simone lived to be 97 years old on February 21, 2023
Such amazing acts of bravery throughout France that we can honor 80 years later.
Listen to the full story and a few other ladies in this week’s episode out now